I was saddened to learn that your commune is hosting bullfights this weekend.

A bullfight is a show in which animals are methodically tortured to death. For an agonizing twenty minutes, bulls are impaled with up to 1.50 meter bladed weapons including goads, banderillas, swords, and daggers. Exhausted by internal and external bleeding, lungs filled with blood, the bulls die slowly, vomiting blood, but are not always clinically dead when their ear or tail is cut off as a trophy. This torture is repeated on a series of six bulls. The horses also undergo acute suffering, although they are not always killed during the show. Regardless of the art behind this torture, it is not acceptable today.

If you are unaware of the barbarity of bullfights, please take a look at the photos on the following pages:

http://www.atourhands.com/images/archive/bullfight/bullfight47.jpg

http://www.anticorrida.com/medias/pages/DSC01467.JPG

http://www.atourhands.com/images/archive/bullfight/bullfight48.jpg

Or view a short film on this page:

http://www.anticorrida.com/telechargement/spots/spotwindows.wmv

Travel agencies like MacDonald Tours, Martin Travel, and Thomas Cook Tours Thunder Bay in Ontario, Canada, are boycotting bullfight areas in France due to the cruelty of these shows, which shock visitors. The bullfights in your commune therefore undermine tourism not only locally, but also throughout your entire region.